I stared at myself in the mirror for a very long time, a look of disgust on my features. I haven’t told my parents that it was my fault, that Mikey was dead because I almost killed myself. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that I was supposed to be the one who was dead, that it was a mistake I made that killed my brother. This should be my funeral that we were headed to.

But it wasn’t. I dressed in my usual dark skinny jeans and black vans, wearing a black button down long sleeve shirt. It was warm outside, and I wanted to roll my sleeves up, but my left arm was damaged so badly now it just wasn’t an option.The word killer was so deeply etched into my skin that people would figure out the truth about Mike’s death. I wished that I was strong enough to come clean, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“Come on, hijo,” my mother said sadly, taking my hand in hers. She has been more present since Mikey died; I guess she realized how short life was and how it could just change in an instant, so she valued me more. I didn’t deserve her change of heart though. My dad, on the other hand, was less present than normal. He blamed me for Mike’s death (with good reason, too), because I was present when it happened. That day had gone by in a flash—the man that wouldn’t let me kill myself, too, called the police, while I was a blubbering mess. Apparently he had witnessed the entire thing, and he told the police that Mike and I had been messing around on the bridge, but Mike had unfortunately slipped. When they asked me questions, I nodded stupidly and just went with that guy’s story. He disappeared before I ever got a chance to talk to him about the knowing look he gave me—he disappeared before I ever got a chance to ask why he covered for me.

So my mom took me under her wing, telling me that something bad was bound to happen to Mike given his wild personality, and my dad pushed me away, telling me that I should have been a better older brother—I didn’t argue with either one of them.

The funeral was full. If it were my funeral, this room probably would be near empty. I wished this were my funeral instead of Mike’s more than anything. Actually, I wished that Mike were alive more than anything. But if one of us had to be dead, I wanted to trade places with him.

I traced his closed casket with my shaking fingertips, kneeling beside it in agony and resting my forehead on the edge. It took a while to recover his body, and he was terribly beaten and broken, so the casket was closed. I sobbed loudly, not caring if anybody heard. This was my brother in there! He was the only person that had ever cared for me unconditionally… and now he was dead.

I pulled away from the casket. I couldn’t be here any more. I paid my respects, but I had to leave. I didn’t bother to wipe my tears or choke back my sobs. If anybody judged me here, then fuck them.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” someone said quietly behind me. I turned around, and my mouth dropped at Shane’s audacity to speak to me here.

I immediately slammed him against the wall, gripping his collar, anger bubbling in my veins.

“Hey, hey, hey!” he raised his hands in defense, but he didn’t fight back or struggle. “I said I was sorry! I’m sorry, okay? Your brother died, I get it, and I’m sorry,” he said, and I noticed that he was crying.

At this point, everybody was staring at me. I released him slowly, backing away. I noticed that everybody was here… everybody from school. Why did they care?

I shook my head and darted out of the funeral home. I couldn’t be in there. I felt like the walls were closing in on me.

I raced out to the sidewalk, collapsing onto my hands and knees. I couldn’t catch my breath and my vision spotted, and then everything went black.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Vic,’ she said, holding me close. I continued to sob, nonetheless.

‘Yes it was! If I… if I hadn’t of… If I… If I…’ I couldn’t continue my sentence. I choked on my words.

‘Shh, stop that. It wasn’t your fault,’ she said, gently rubbing my back.

‘Don’t you hate me now?’ I asked in a broken whisper.

‘No, not at all,’ she said firmly.

‘Even though I killed my own brother? Even though I’m crazy?’

‘You’re not crazy, Vic,’ she denied, frowning at me.

‘Do you have any idea why I’m here?’ I laughed—a crazy, wicked, bitter laugh.

She shook her head. She probably thought that I was here for trying to kill myself.

I wanted her to know the truth, though. I wanted her to know how deranged I really was, how deserving I was of this every day torture. ‘I guess I should continue talking, then.’

“Hey,” I went to scream when I heard a terrifyingly familiar voice in my room, but no sound came out, just a breathless gasp as my throat constricted.

“Sorry,” he chuckled lightly. “I didn’t mean to scare you there, buddy,” he walked closer to me, and I shivered violently in my bed, sitting up and scooting far back so I was pressed up against the headboard.

“Hey, what’s the matter with you? Relax, man,” Mike said softly.

“You’re not… you can’t… why are you… what is…” I couldn’t form complete sentences, so I just whimpered incoherently at my dead brother who was impossibly standing before me.

“Do you not want me here?” Mike asked, his face hurt.

“I do,” I whispered as tears fell down my face. “But you’re dead!” I pointed at him accusingly.

He laughed. “So?”

Suddenly Mike’s image disappeared, washing away as if a wave had crashed over him but he never came back to the surface. My bedroom door swung open.

“Cariño, qué está pasando?” my mother asked frantically, her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes squinted.

“Nada, mamá,” I mumbled, shaking my head.

“Victor, I heard you talking,” she said sternly, her face a combination of seriousness and worry.

“It was just a nightmare! It’s nothing,” I replied quickly. She narrowed her eyes at me again.

“Bueno. Go back to sleep, you have school tomorrow,” she said sweetly. I nodded, and then she closed the door again.

Sleep was the last thing I could do, though. I haven’t been to school in three weeks, but they were forcing me to finish my last month of high school. I dreaded it. I’d have to face everyone, and I had no idea how they were going to treat me (not that I really cared anymore, though). I’m sure some of them had their suspicions about Mike’s death, but most of them just accepted the story that was public. But was I still going to be ignored? Bullied? Despised? Beat up? Not that I cared, though; I didn’t want to be the center of attention at all. I didn’t want their sympathetic looks. I’d much rather set myself up as their punching bag and be done with it.

And then I couldn’t shake the image of Mike out of my head. I was freezing in my room, but I was also paralyzed so I couldn’t do anything about it. I continued to shake as I sat up in my bed, my eyes wide and alert, and I felt physically sick.

“Don’t be like that, Vic,” I yelped quietly when I heard him again.

“M-Mike…” I whispered. I blinked several times, but he didn’t go away.

“What? Do you want me gone?” he asked, his features twisted in a mild form of anger.

Tears welled in my eyes. “I don’t want you gone,” I cried, stuttering like a maniac.

“Then I’m not going anywhere,” he said, ruffling my hair and making himself comfortable in my desk chair.

I blinked again, trying to determine if this was real.

“It’s real, Vic,” Mike chimed in. I shivered, but I was no longer paralyzed in fear. I was… intrigued. I slid out of my bed and warily approached my brother. I reached out, carefully touching his face.

It felt pretty damn real to me.

“Victor! What are you doing?” my mother barged into my room again, staring at me incredulously, my hand still touching Mike’s face. Mike smirked and sighed.

“I, uh, um…” I stammered, dropping my now shaking hand.

“Why did you say Michael’s name? Victor, what is the matter with you?” she exclaimed accusingly, and I jumped back at her harshness.

“I don’t know, mama,” I said quietly, cowering away.

She muttered inaudible things under her breath—obviously cranky from fatigue and heartache—and left quickly, shaking her head. My bottom lip quivered as I sat myself down on the edge of my bed, feeling more like a toddler and less like a man as the painful seconds passed.

“Don’t worry about them, Vic,” Mike spoke up again. I felt cold pressure on my shoulder suddenly, but I didn’t flinch. It was just Mike; it was just his hand on my shoulder.

“Try and sleep. Big day tomorrow,” he said, and I nodded and sighed in agreement, curling back up amongst my blankets. “’Night, brother,” he said quietly before I fell into a haunting sleep.

I woke up sweating, not remembering my nightmare, but knowing that it existed. I knew I was going to be late to school, so I embraced that fact, taking my time getting up and ready.

“Hurry up, Vic! You’re going to be late!” Mike reminded me. I waved him off.

“Yeah, who cares?” I asked, and he responded with a shrug of his shoulders.

I sighed as I got into my car, my hands shaking out of nervousness for school. I didn’t see the point in going, honestly. We had barely a month left, and it wasn’t like we were doing anything important now.

“Don’t forget your headphones,” Mike said, and I nodded thankfully, reaching over into the backseat for my headphones. I wasted no time plugging them in and putting them on, losing myself in the music and hoping, once again, that I would go unnoticed by my peers.

Ah, if I ever had that much luck.

Maybe I was just being self-conscious, but maybe everybody I passed was actually staring at me. I ignored them, slumping into my desk in history class. I stared blankly at the board, careful not to notice Kerri next to me, or Kurt behind me. Even when she tapped me on the shoulder, I ignored her. Ever since Mike died, this whole ignoring people thing was much, much easier. I didn’t really mind hearing death wishes or death threats. I welcomed them, rather. It didn’t faze me to hear that I was worthless, because I already knew that.

The only thing that was getting me through the hell weeks at school was having Mike by my side constantly. I wanted to try and kill myself again, but that didn’t really work out last time, did it? Besides, I didn’t want to lose Mike, again.

“How was your day?” he propped his legs up on my desk casually.

“Shitty, as usual,” I shrugged my shoulders. “What did you do all day?” I asked.

“I decided I wanted to do some haunting,” Mike said, wiggling his eyebrows. I rolled my eyes.

“You’re not scary,” I pointed out. “And who do you have to haunt, anyway?” I laughed.

“I’m not scary to you,” he corrected. I nodded, allowing that. The whole Michael Christopher Fuentes is dead yet still kicking in my bedroom thing didn’t really frighten me anymore. In fact, it made me feel comforted—I could come home from another bad day to my brother, no matter how dead he actually was. It didn’t matter if he was really there or not, did it? This was me coping, right? As long as I knew it was real for me, nothing else mattered, right?

Wrong.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Victor Vincent!” before Mike could finish telling me about his mischievous plans, my door nearly fell off of its hinges as my father barged in.

“What?” I asked.

“You are going to give your mother a heart attack if you keep this up!” he screamed, stepping dangerously close to me. Mike stared at me wide eyed, and then with a slight frown he waved, and then poof! he disappeared.

“Keep what up?” I asked calmly.

“Talking to yourself! Who are you talking to in here?” he yelled, rummaging through my closets and drawers and looking in the corners and under my bed for a person that we both knew wasn’t there.

“No one,” I said quietly.

“You are lying! Te odiamos! Todo lo que hacemos es causarnos dolor! Dime la verdad!” My dad screamed, his face purple with rage and his eyes black with hatred. His words hit me hard. Mike suddenly appeared again, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. Oh, I would do anything for him to be here right now.

“Hablar!” my dad screamed again, his hands suddenly not waving around in the air angrily, but rather wrapped tightly around my own neck.

“Let go of him!” Mike screamed in our dad’s ears, but, of course, he couldn’t hear him. That made the situation seem so real to me; nobody else heard or saw Mike but me, and as my chest tightened with the lack of air, I realized how delusional that made me.

“It doesn’t matter, Vic! It doesn’t matter!” Mike reminded me.

“M-Mike,” I choked out—half to answer my dad’s question, and half to plead to Mike, to call out to him, because I felt like I was dying and like I was about to meet him for real, now.

But death never came. My dad immediately unwrapped his hands from my neck, leaving me breathless and collapsed on the floor.

“This is it,” he said firmly. My mother suddenly appeared in the doorway, her face stained with tears and terror.

“What a lovely family reunion,” Mike snickered from beside me.

“Not now, Mike,” I rolled my eyes at him, and then I immediately clasped my hands over my mouth as both of my parents stared at me incredulously… like I was crazy…

“This is it,” my dad repeated. “We are sending you away.”

‘And now you’re here,’ she whispered quietly to herself.

I laughed bitterly. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now I’m here,’ I said sadly.

The Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at the University of California: Los Angeles—because I was nothing more than a mentally instable and troubled young adult, my psychological health used as a tool for learning. My parents really did care for me, didn’t they? Sending me two hours away so people in white coats can monitor, test, and learn from my fucked up brain. Apparently they just really wanted “the best” to try and “fix” me; that’s what they claimed, anyway. But I knew that wasn’t the case. They just wanted intelligent people to confirm the “hunch” that they had regarding my condition: that I was just plain insane.

Notes

Dun. Dun. Duuuun.

Sorry for the upset over Mikey's death. I didn't like doing it, but it was necessary!
And, now that it's been officially revealed where Vic is... did any of you think that he was there already? Did any of you guys predict that Vic was telling his tale from the comfort of a mental hospital? Im curious haha

And translations: (A giant 'yay' for google translate)

Cariño, qué está pasando? --> Honey, what's happening?/What is going on?
Te odiamos! --> We hate you .... :'(
Todo lo que hacemos es causarnos dolor! --> All you do is cause us pain! .... :'(
Dime la verdad --> Tell us the truth!
Hablar! --> Speak!

I have no idea if any of that is truly correct Spanish, but, hey, hakuna matata

Comment/rate/subscribe pleaasse!! <3 :)